Re: Standard Library Interest?

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
 >
 > I guess our faith is in the different parties. ;-)
 >
 > You are willing to trust that the vendors will get things going. I am
 >  too skeptical/cynical to have that kind of trust, beyond anything
 > more than the GNAT.* packages.
 >
No, I *don't* trust them to "get things going". That's why I'm nagging,
complaining, whining, pleading, etc. I expect that people with support
contracts with various vendors might send them a note saying "I want a
Conventional Ada Library that does X, Y and Z..." A lone voice crying
out in the wilderness occasionally can have an impact. :-) However, I
doubt I'm alone.

As for the GNAT packages - that might actually make a really good start 
for a Conventional Ada Library. There is visible evidence that ACT is 
out there actively enhancing their Ada product line, so they would be 
one of the vendors most likely to do something with a CAL. Are any of 
the other vendors doing anything with their Ada product lines to enhance 
them? Or are they just selling what they've got and sitting on their 
hands, so to speak, with any new development? If ACT was the only one - 
or perhaps the dominant one - then making ACT happy would be key to 
success. Starting with what they've already got would be a good way to 
do it.




 > My faith is more in the development side. *WE* have the invested
 > interest. *WE* can more easily *do* something. Vendors have to
 > budget, plan and justify. Vendors are less likely to do "extreme
 > programming"/skunkworks type of things to see if an idea will fly.
 >
I didn't say that *WE* wouldn't necessarily have something to do with
it. What I said was that the vendors need to be involved early on in
some manner or whatever *WE* do is going to be a waste of time. I just
absolutely, 100% see a total of ZERO evidence of any of the existing
library attempts getting to any sort of point of "general acceptance"
that got the vendors interested in packaging it with their compilers or
got the ARG to declare it "Standard Ada". Yet there have been dozens -
or more - attempts to get various libraries of stuff started. What
evidence do you have that starting Yet Another Library Project is going
to meet with any better success unless you do something strategically
different this time?

Sorry if I sould "angry" - I'm not. Just excited. :-) I'm trying to get
across the point that if we really want a library effort of some sort to
succeed, we'd better look at all the ones that have "failed" in the past
and try to make a different set of mistakes. You're not the firt one to
get charged up and say "Well, lets go start writing a library..." I'm
suggesting you look at why the other efforts failed and figure out a way
around that.



 > *WE* don't have to answer to anyone (as open source/hobby). That
 > allows us to do R&D, where the vendor (and/or our employer) would
 > have trouble with.
 >
Yes, but just recall all the other various and sundry "Open Source" /
Volunteer oriented projects of any stripe that get started out there.
(Should we start a list?)

I'd bet that if you actually surveyed, you'd find that 90% of them
colapse before they ever produce anything at all useful. The remainder
might make something that works, but that it is mostly produced over a
*very* long stretch of time and that it really doesn't take on the
qualities of a "Finished Product" (more like some kid's sience fair
project, usually) until there is some commercial effort out there making
money on supporting it. The few that get "Commercialized" might start 
reacting fairly well and at reasonable speed to perceived needs, but it 
takes them a really long time to get to that point.

What is in your plan to start building a library that is going to make 
that different?



 > So, yes, you're right. I would favour "organize an effort", rather
 > than pleading with vendors. ;-)
 >
Please go right ahead. I'll watch the effort from the sidelines. I'd
love to see you or anybody else get a library together that won some
kind of acceptance from the general Ada community and got some kind of
interest from the vendors and eventually had some sort of official
standing. I'm just betting it won't work - and I'm not a pessimist by
nature. I've just seen it fail too many times in the past to want to go
off and make the same mistakes all over again. At least, let's be
creative and make some *different* mistakes this time. :-)

Or maybe you have a *different* plan? Something other than an
all-volunteer, open source, free for the world, "Let's all get together
and build something good & wonderful for Ada and give it away hoping it
will be adopted by everyone..." effort? I'd like to see the plan, if
that's the case.

MDC
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Marin David Condic
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